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"I've been praying, Nick," she told me once. "And I think it's working. It's like I can feel the tumors dying. I like to imagine them screaming in agony as they're dying."
"I'm sure they are. You're young and strong."
"Will you pray for me, too?"
"You don't have ask, Dana. I've been praying for you every day."
"Thanks," she said.
"How's dad holding up?"
"He's been great. You can't believe how helpful he is. He cooks me soup and even bought me a television with a remote so I don't have to get up to change the channel."
"Good. I'm glad."
"So how are you doing? Anything exciting going on?"
I hesitated. There was something more, but part of me didn't want to answer. How could I tell her? At the same time, I knew my sister would find out eventually; others in the family, including Micah, already knew.
"Well, we just found out that Cat is pregnant again," I finally said. "The baby's due in September."
For a long time, my sister was silent.
"That's wonderful," she finally said. Her voice was subdued. "I'm happy for you two."
"Did you tell her?" Micah asked me a few minutes later. I'd called him immediately after hanging up with Dana.
"Yeah, I told her."
"How'd she take it?"
"About like I expected."
"It's terrible, isn't it? I mean, she'd be a great mother. She's just like mom was."
I said nothing; there was nothing really to say.
"I've been thinking about you," Micah finally added. "And the way things have been happening lately."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm talking about the highs and lows. First, you get married and you're on an incredible high. Six weeks later, mom dies, and it's impossible to get any lower. Cat gets pregnant for the first time, then has a miscarriage. You and Cat make the decision to move and you're excited about starting a new life; a month later, Dana has a seizure and we find out she has a brain tumor. Then, you learn that Cathy's pregnant again; at the same time, we find out that Dana can't have kids and she isn't likely to live more than five years. It's like you've been living on a roller coaster that's racing up and down, without hitting a level area. For you, it's been the highest of highs and the lowest of lows."
"I could say the same thing about you," I offered quietly. "And dad, too."
"I know," he said. "It kind of takes the joy out of those highs, doesn't it?"
Dana's radiation ended halfway through the summer and, remarkably, her CAT scan came back clear. The doctors were optimistic, my sister's hair began growing back slowly, and for the first time since the seizure, our worries about her were relegated to the background.
With my sister's improvement, my dad's behavior toward me changed for the better as well. He began speaking to me on the phone again; it was tentative at first, a hesitant rapprochement. He still talked to Cat at great length, however, and we learned that he'd actually begun dating again.
He'd met a woman, he said, and he liked her a lot.
Dana, too, was getting along better with Bob; after the surgery, their relationship had been rocky.
And Micah, as usual, kept humming along, escaping for long weekends and avoiding all serious relationships.
In September 1993, Ryan was born, though I wasn't at the hospital for his birth. Instead, I was out of town on business--a meeting I couldn't miss--and Cat's water broke just as the meeting was ending. I wouldn't arrive to see my son until the following day.
In November, our family reunited in Texas for Thanksgiving with my dad's younger brother Monty, and I was struck by the fact that my father seemed genuinely happy. He'd fallen in love, he said, and all three of us were pleased that he'd finally found someone whose company he enjoyed. This news, however, about our father suddenly seemed less important than what else we learned on that trip.
Dana told us that she and Bob had broken up again. This wasn't entirely unexpected; the stress of her recent illness would have been enough to test any relationship.
"Oh," I remember saying, "that's too bad. I like Bob."
"There's more though," my sister said.
"What's that?"
She smiled, offering the faintest of shrugs. "I'm pregnant," she said.
I didn't know what to say.
"Don't worry. I've stopped taking my antiseizure medicine."
There was even more. In our family, I was slowly beginning to realize, there was always something more. Not only was my sister seriously jeopardizing her health--a worry that would plague us over the next seven months--but well on her way to becoming a single mother. We soon found out that she was expecting twins.
Then, increasing our worries, right after Christmas, my dad abruptly informed my sister she had to move out of the house, despite the fact that she had nowhere else to go.
Though I never told anyone, I secretly began to wonder if my father was not only manic-depressive, but mentally ill in other ways as well.
In December, my dad learned that the woman he'd been dating--the first woman he'd dated after my mom's death--hadn't actually been divorced. Instead, she'd only been separated from her husband, and had been using my father for the little money he had. By the end of the relationship, my father was deep in debt. When he could afford nothing more, she cut off contact entirely. I don't know whether my dad kept calling the woman and she finally grew tired of his persistence, or whether it was accidental, but her husband eventually found out about the relationship. The husband was a burly police officer, and he'd physically threatened my dad in the driveway of my dad's home. My father had been terrified by the confrontation, even fearing for his life.
It was this turn of events, right around Christmas, I believe, that finally broke him emotionally.
From that point on, my dad embarked on a downward spiral that only grew worse over time. His mood and attitude were bitter, and he became not only angry, but paranoid as well. Because he couldn't go to the police--what good would it have done?--he bought guns and ammunition instead. He asked my sister to move out of the house. And then he bought a dog named Flame.
Flame, a German shepherd, had originally been trained for police duty, but because of his volatile nature, couldn't be used. Though attached to my dad, Flame made everyone else nervous. The dog growled and snapped, seemingly at random, and wasn't trustworthy. His combustible personality, combined with my father's instability, made for a dangerous mix.
During the first few months of 1994, my brother and I talked endlessly on the phone, about both our sister and our father, wondering what, if anything, we could do.
"Should I invite Dana to live out here with us?" I asked.
"She can't, Nick," Micah answered. "Her doctors are out here."
"What about dad?"
"He's adamant that she can't live at home anymore. And to be honest, I really don't want her living there either. He's really getting strange these days. And with Flame . . . no, Dana can't stay there. Not if she has kids."
"Can she stay with you?"
/> "I've asked, but she says she doesn't want to. She says she can handle it. Her friend Olga has a small room that she says Dana can rent."
Olga lived in the old farmhouse where we boarded our horses; she'd known Dana for years.
"How's she going to handle it? She has no job, no husband, no money, she has a brain tumor . . ."
"I know. I try to tell her that."
"What does she say?"
"She says that she'll make do. She isn't worried at all. She's excited about having kids."
"How can she not be worried? What if she has a seizure and no one's around to help her?"
"She has faith that it'll all work out."
I hesitated. "Do you think that's enough?"
"I don't know," he answered.
Thankfully, my sister made it through her pregnancy uneventfully, and in May 1994, she delivered healthy twin boys she named Cody and Cole. Within a week of her delivery, she was back on her antiseizure medication, and she began taking care of the babies in the cramped room she called home. Micah and I sent her money, and somehow it was enough for her to survive. Dana and the twins slept on a fold-out mattress on a wooden floor for two months; by the end of the summer, however, my sister had reconciled with Bob and had decided to move in with him so the boys could live with their father. Surprising us, she hadn't told him that she'd been pregnant until right before the twins had been born.
During that time, my dad devoted most of his time to working with the dog. Despite my sister's apparent good health, his anger only grew worse. In that six-month period, he began to estrange himself from the rest of his extended family. He refused to take calls from his mother, father, or siblings; if they sent a letter, he returned it unopened. Nor would he talk to me--or Micah and Dana--about his reasons for cutting them out of his life. If we asked him what was going on, he grew furious with us--right to Nuclear Launch--and through gritted teeth would tell us that it was "none of your damn business." For whatever reason, he'd begun to blame his family for all the problems he had in his life. At the time, however, I'd been through so many ups and downs that I somehow believed my dad would get through this as well.
